shared a ready room with for the past twenty years, all those guys now middle-aged … or dead.
Toad was still talking when Jake turned back to the pile of balsa on the table. When he eventually paused for air, Jake said mildly.
“So what we you up to these days?” as he used the X-acto knife to trim a protruding sliver from a balsa rib piece.
“My squadron tour was up,” Toad said slowly. “And when you get a Silver Star you can pretty well call your next set of orders. So I talked it over with the detailer.” He looked around the room, then swiveled back to Jake. “And I told him I wanted to go where you were going.”
Jake laid the knife down and scooted his chair back. “I’m still on convalescent leave.”
“Yessir. I heard. And I hear you’re going to the Pentagon as a division director or something. So I’m reporting there this coming Monday. I’ll be working for you.”
Jake smiled again. “I seem to recall you had had enough of this warrior shit”
“Yeah. Well, what the hell! I decided to stay around for another set of orders. I can always pull the plug. And I’ve got nothing better to do right now anyway.”
Jake snorted and nibbed his fingertips together. The glue had coated his fingertips and wouldn’t come off. “I don’t either. So we’ll go shuffle paper for a while, eh?”
“Yessir,” Toad said, and stood. “Maybe we won’t get underway, but we’ll still be in the navy. That’s something, isn’t it?” He stuck out his hand again, like a cowboy drawing a pistol. “I’ll be seeing you in the office, when you get there,” he said as Jake pumped the outstretched hand. “Say hello to Mrs, Grafton for me.”
Jake accompanied Toad to the door, then out onto the porch. There was a young woman in the car, and she looked at him curi- ously. He nodded at her, then put a hand on Toad’s shoulder and squared around to face him. “Take care of yourself, y’hear?”
“Sure, CAG. Sure.”
“Thanks for coming by.”
As Toad drove away Jake waved, then went back into the house. The place was depressing. It was as if Tarkington brought all the life and energy with him, then took it away when he left. But he was of Jake’s past. Everything was past. The flying, the ready rooms, the sun on the sea as you manned up to fly, all of it was over, gone, finished.
It was after four o’clock. He had forgotten to eat lunch. Oh well, Callie wasn’t going to get here until nine o’clock or so. The Chesa- peake Bay Bridge shouldn’t be crowded on Friday evenings this time of year. He could get some more of this plane assembled, then fix a sandwich or something. Maybe run over to Burger King.
He scratched at the glue caked on his fingertips. The stuff came off in flakes tf you peeled it right. This plane — it was going to be a nice one. It was going to be good to fly it. When flying was all you knew and all you had been, you needed a plane around.
Oh, shit! As he looked at the pieces he felt like a fool. A fucking toy plane! He threw himself on the couch and lay there staring at the ceiling.
Toad Tarkington was silent as he drove from stoplight to stoplight on the main highway through Rehoboth Beach. The woman beside him finally asked, “So how is he?”
“He’s changed,” Toad said. “The official report said he was in a coma for two weeks. It was a week before that Greek fishing boat even made port. It’s a miracle he didn’t die on the boat. He said the fidiermen expected him to and kept fishing.”
“I would have liked to meet him.”
“Well, I was going to mention you were in the car, but he was busy working on a model airplane and he was… Anyway, you can always meet him later.”
The woman reached for the knob to turn the stereo on, then thought better of it. “This new assignment — asking for it just be- cause you like him…”
“It’s not that I like him,” Toad said. “I respect him. He’s… different. There aren’t many men like him left in this day and age. If Congress hadn’t jumped into that incident with both feet and voted him the Medal of Honor, he would probably have been forced to retire. Maybe even a court-martial.” Toad smacked the steering wheel with his hand. “He’s a national hero and he doesn’t give a damn. I’ve never met anyone like him before.” He thought about it “Maybe there aren’t any more like him.”
The woman reached for the knob again and turned the stereo on.
She had known Toad Tarkington for three weeks and she was still trying to figure him out. He was the first military man she had dated and he was modestly famous after the attack last fall on United States. Her friends thought it was so exciting. Still, he was a little weird. Ah well, he made a decent salary and bathed and shaved and looked marvelous at parties. And he was a fine lover. A girl could do a lot worse.
“Where do you want to eat tonight?” she asked.
It was dark and spattering rain when Jake heard Callie’s car pull in. He had completed assembly of the vertical and horizontal stabi- lizers, the rudder, and the wings, and had placed them on top of the bookcase and credenza to cure and was cleaning up the mess on the kitchen table. He raked the rest of it into the box the air- plane had come in and slid the box up on top of the kitchen cabi- nets, then went outside to meet her. She was opening the trunk of her car.
“Hey, good-looking. Welcome home.” He pecked her cheek and lifted her overnight bag out of the trunk.
“Hello.” She followed him into the house, hugging herself against the evening chill. He closed the door behind her and climbed the stairs toward the bedrooms. “What’s this?” Callie called.
“I’m building an airplane,” he boomed as he dropped the bag on the bed. When he reached the foot of the stairs she was examining the wing structure without touching it “It’s dry enough to pick up. How about coffee?”
“Sure.” Callie walked slowly around the living/dining area, her purse still over her shoulder, looking. She opened the door to the screened-in porch and was shivering in the wind, looking at the wicker furniture, when he handed her the coffee cup. “This stuff needs to be painted again.” She slid the door closed and leaned back against it as she sipped the hot liquid.
“What kind of week did you have?”
“So-so.” She was halfway through her first semester as a lan- guage instructor at Georgetown University. “They asked me to teach this summer.”
“What did you say?”
‘That I’d think about it.” She had been planning on spending the summer here at the beach. Kicking her pumps off, she sat on the sofa with her legs under her. “It all depends.”
Jake poured himself coffee and sat down at the kitchen table where he could face her.
“I went to see Dr. Arnold this afternoon.”
“Uh-huh.” Jake had refused to go back to the psychologist
“He says if you don’t get your act together I should leave you.”
“Just what does the soul slicer think my act is?”
“Oh, cut the crap, Jake.” She averted her face. She finished her coffee in silence, then rinsed the cup in the sink. Retrieving her shoes, she went upstairs.
The sound of water running in the shower was audible all over the downstairs. Jake spread the airplane diagram on the table and opened the instruction manual. Finally he threw the manual down in disgust.
He needed a drink. The doctors had told him not to, but fuck them. He rummaged under the sink and found that old bottle of bourbon with several inches of liquid remaining. He poured some in a glass and added ice.
The problem was that he didn’t want to do anything. He didn’t want to retire and sit here and vegetate or find a civilian job. He didn’t want to go to the Pentagon and immerse himself in the bureaucracy. The Pentagon job had been the only one offered when he was finally ready to be discharged from Bethesda Naval Hospital. The politicians had made him a hero and checkmated the naval establishment but the powers that be had still been smarting from the way the official investigation had been derailed. Luckily he had been damn near comatose in the hospital and everyone in uniform knew he had nothing to do with the political maneuvering. So he was still in the navy. But his shot at flag rank had vaporized like a drop of water on a hot stove. Not that he really ever hoped to make admiral or even cared.
He lay down on the couch and sipped at the drink. Maybe the whole problem was that he just didn’t care about any of it any- more. Let the other guys do the sweating- Let them dance on the tifhtrope. Let someone else
